13 Episodes:
Created by Tim Minear & Howard Gordon
Dir: Tim Minear, Allan Kroeker, Nick Gomez, Dwight Little, James Contner, Marita Grabiak, Fred Gerber, Karen Gaviola, Vern Gillum, Kevin Hooks & Dwight Little
Writ: Tim Minear, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Ben Edlund, Craig Silverstein, Ahmed Lavalais, Karine Rosenthal, Richard Hatem, Rob Pearlstein & Mark Fish
- Rachel Nichols - Special Agent Rebecca Locke
- Adam Baldwin - Special Agent Danny Love
- Katie Finneran - Special Agent Melody Sim
- Nelsan Ellis - Carter Howard
- Jay Harrington - Special Agent Paul Ryan
- Peter Coyote - Special Agent Virgil “Web” Webster
Does the world really need another crime-fighting show? Maybe not but it definitely needs more Tim Minear shows. And it doesn’t hurt to have more Adam Baldwin around. Unfortunately, ratings, while not terrible were not great, and after only seven episodes it was pulled. Before cancellation 13 episodes in all were made, and recently ITV4 showed the full run, allowing those of us with access to the internet to take a peak.
The basic premise of The Inside was an elite group of FBI agents solving cases, mainly through psychological profiling. Cases that were chosen by the enigmatic Web. The opening episode saw the death of a member of the team, and Rebecca Locke came in as her replacement. But Locke had secrets of her own, as a child she was kidnapped and held for 18 months, escpaing with no memory of how, or what was done to her. Web usually finds some way of manipulating her into using this trauma to help her solve the cases.
So far, so pretty standard. A pretty blonde agent with a traumatic past. Although maybe hers is a little more extreme than other examples. But what makes The Inside work so well is the fact that it isn’t Law and Order or CSI: where-ever. Instead it was a smart, funny, and dark show that had such potential. Potential it never got to fulfil. Damn you cancelling Fox execs!
The Inside does follow a bit of a pattern in some of the episodes, but don’t all cop shows? The bad-guys have to get their come-uppance, but there were the beginnings of an arc there. There were some great characters, some wonderful dialogue. It deserved more than 13 episodes.
There were complaints in the states that it was overly grusome, and not fit for family viewing. And well, duh! I mean, its a show about seriel killers. Do you really expect it to be lightness and froth? But, despite having rapists, arsonists, murderers slashing pregnant women and leaving dolls behind, and general unpleasantness it actually is not that gorey. It hints rather than shows, although the fat dude was unpleasant to watch.
There have been rumours about a dvd release of The Inside, but at the moment this looks very unlikely, so if you want to watch this excellent show you’ll either have to find someone who has copies, wait for it to turn up on your local tv stations, or find the torrents.
IMDb | Tim Minear.net | blog_eric(x) | ModBlog
Tags:
10 Stars,
Adam Baldwin,
Ahmed Lavalais,
Allan Kroeker,
Ben Edlund,
Craig Silverstein,
crime,
David Fury,
Dwight Little,
FBI,
Fred Gerber,
James Contner,
Jane Espenson,
Jay Harrington,
Karen Gaviola,
Karine Rosenthal,
Katie Finneran,
Kevin Hooks,
Marita Grabiak,
Mark Fish,
Nelsan Ellis,
Nick Gomez,
Peter Coyote,
police,
profiling,
Rachel Nichols,
Richard Hatem,
Rob Pearlstein,
The Inside,
Tim Minear,
Vern Gillum
Related posts
So I’ve been downloading Lost, and have eps 1 and 2 of season two. I know, I know, bad me for all that illegal stuff, but I’ll end up watching it when it comes out over here, maybe. But as well as Lost I also went a-hunting for The Inside, and could only find episode 4 and later. So I borrowed 4 as a tester. And yes, to see Mr. Baldwin.
